


French Twist

by jadeitebutterdish



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Canonical Character Death, False Childhood Memories, Follows Book Canon, Gen, Hair, Jacques Snicket Is The World's Best Brother, Masked ball, Minor Discussed Character Death, Siblings being cute, The Grim Grotto, The Penultimate Peril, The Vile Village, because poetic license, braiding, follows @snicketsleuth on tumblr's timeline, loosely, mentions of kidnapping on or below par with canon, not exactly, oodles of references to canon, this is pretty sad tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 21:32:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15373755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeitebutterdish/pseuds/jadeitebutterdish
Summary: Jacques was fascinated by hair.





	French Twist

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes in the notes section!
> 
> 1 - This is the first story I've posted here! Neat!  
> 2 - This story loosely follows tumblr user @snicketsleuth's proposed timeline for the series (I fiddled with ages some, but almost everything that takes place during the actual books is accurate to that timeline) as well as their theories that Lemony's memories of his childhood are false and that Beatrice survived the fire at the Baudelaire mansion only to perish in the fire at the Duchess's Masked Ball. Reading those is not required to understand this story, but all of @snicketsleuth's theories are totally worth your time.  
> 3 - I wrote this from roughly midnight to three in the morning and I've only looked over it briefly. I don't think there are typos, but if there are, sorry, I guess
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

            Jacques was fascinated by hair.

            For as long as he can remember, he studied the intricate updos his mother created with her thick brown locks: bouffants, coiled buns, fishtail braids. He marveled at the twisted hair as he sat at the kitchen table while his mother baked or cooked or served tea, watching the way the individual clusters looped together, watching pieces slip out and frame his mother’s face as the day went on.

            One morning Jacques awoke with the sun and went in search of his mother. He found her sitting in front of her vanity in her powder room. The room was dark except for the heavy brass lamp next to the vanity. Jacques watches as his mother effortlessly divided her hair into two sections, held one in each hand, pulled pieces from each side and looping them around and across, creating the style he’d memorized from his seat at the kitchen table.

            His mother tied her fishtail braid with a ribbon and tilted her head to one side and then the other, examining her hair as it swooped over each ear. In the reflection of her vanity mirror she saw Jacques standing barefoot in the door, his blue silk pajama pants a little too long.

            “Jacques?”

            His eyes widened, and he said nothing. Jacques had never seen his mother do her hair before, and the act felt intimate, private, as though Jacques were a peeping tom witnessing something he should not have.

            But his mother smiled. “Come here, my sweet.”

            Jacques padded to his mother’s feet, and she picked him up, sat him on her lap. Jacques looked at his own face reflected threefold in the mirrors of his mother’s vanity, watched his face lit by the heavy brass lamp in a way he’d never seen it. He could see his mother’s nose and chin on his face, the way those features melted with those of his father – his eyes, coloring, and mouth. His mother rested her chin on top of his head and smiled.

            “Would you like me to teach you?”

            Jacques’s face lit up. He’d thought about it before, of course, of being able to craft the styles his mother wore almost daily, but the idea seemed outlandish, akin to the idea of being a world chess champion or a Broadway star.

            Jacques’s mother reached behind her, untied the ribbon, and ran her fingers through her hair, disintegrating the elegant braid she’d created so carefully. She gathered Jacques and stood, sat him on the stool in front of the vanity, and knelt before the stool. She could see her face, and Jacques’s above it, in the three mirrors. She reached above and behind her head.

            “Give me your hands.”

            From then on Jacques always woke with the sun, joined his mother in her powder room, and learned from his mother, her hands on his, guiding her thick black hair.

 

~~

 

            The first time Kit remembers Jacques braiding her hair, they were six years old.

            Kit lay in a bed that was not hers, staring into the dark of the room. She absently rubbed her ankle, still sore from being clutched in the hands of an older volunteer, and the freshly acquired ink there. Her brothers had matching tattoos, matching ankle bruises, matching fears. Kit had not been able to finish her tea.

            “Kit.” She rolled over. She could make out the place where her twin’s face was clouded by the darkness, his brown eyes wide.

            “Jacques?”

            “I’m scared.”

            “We’re all scared.”    

            “Lemony?”

            Kit cranes her neck to look in the crib behind her. “Asleep.”

            “Will he remember them?” Jacques asked. Kit knew who he was talking about. Jacques had gotten to finish his tea.

            “Yes,” Kit replied. “We’ll make sure of it.”

            The twins fell silent for a moment.

            “Are you still awake?” Jacques blinked.”  
            “Yes.”

            “Can I… braid your hair?”

            “What?”

            “Can I braid your hair?”

            Kit’s eyebrows furrowed. “You know how?”

            Jacques nodded. “I thought… it might make you feel better.”

            Kit thought this meant it would make Jacques feel better, and so she nodded and sat up in the middle of her bed. Jacques slipped out from under his covers and crept the few feet to his sister’s bed, his feet bare on the cold hardwood floor. He sat at the head of Kit’s bed and gathered his sister’s thick brown hair in his hands. Both twins sat criss-cross, their tattoos hidden against the foreign sheets.

            The room was too dark to tell one section of hair from another, and so Jacques worked by muscle memory alone; his eyes faced the general direction of the back of Kit’s head as he twisted pieces of her hair around themselves. The braid reached top of her back, between her shoulder blades, and Jacques tied it as best he could with the ribbon from his pocket. He wished for the heavy brass lamp so he could analyze his work, whether one section was too thick and overpowered the others, whether he should’ve parted the hair before he started. Jacques leaned back and Kit reached behind her, worked her fingers over the braid.

            “Thank you,” Kit said.

            Jacques nodded, but it went unseen in the dark. He went to stand, and Kit caught his sleeve.

            “Wait.” Kit’s voice shook slightly. “Can you sleep here with me?”

            Jacques was not unaccustomed to sharing a bed with his sister. There were times back at home when Kit’s bedroom grew too big for her, when she didn’t think there was someone in her closet or behind her dollhouse _per se_ , but can you please come stay with me anyway, Jacques, because someone _could_ be there. Jacques nodded again, and this time Kit saw, and she scooted to the far side of the bed. Jacques lay on his side with Kit’s back nearly touching his chest, facing the crib in which Lemony slept. They watched their baby brother sleep soundly and considered whether any of them would see their parents again.

 

~~

 

            The next time the Snicket siblings saw their parents was the day after Lemony’s seventh birthday.

            Jacques and Kit turned thirteen three months prior; before his bar mitzvah Jacques did Kit’s hair in a bun, low on the back of her head, with loose pieces of hair framing her face and tucked behind her ears. When she turned to look at him he realized how much she looked like their mother.

            In the car ride back to the headquarters the Snickets were quiet. Jacques sat on the driver’s side, Lemony on the passenger’s side, and Kit between them on the hump. That morning Jacques gave Kit two Dutch braids, thick plaits that clung to her head before tapering and falling away at the base of her skull. Jacques and Kit looked out the same window as the world zipped past them.

            Jacques looked down at his hands folded in his lap.

            “Kit,” he whispered, so quietly even Lemony couldn’t hear.

“Were… those our parents?” Kit whispered back.

            Jacques considered the afternoon they’d spent in the mansion. He considered the grandfather clock that loomed from one end of the hallway. He considered the mugs they’d drunk their tea out of around three. He considered the smell coming up the walk, like morning glories. He looked at his sister and found her looking at him, the uncertainty he felt reflected in her eyes.

            The flowers outside their home were daffodils, not morning glories.

            Their mother always served tea in porcelain teacups.

            When the grandfather clock chimed, Jacques felt no familiarity with the clanging.

            “I don’t know,” he said.

            Lemony stared out the other window, watching the ocean as they passed.

            That night Kit untied the ribbons from her hair and ran her fingers through the waves. They spread around her head as she stared at the ceiling until the sun rose.

 

~~

 

            It had been a long time since he’d done this. Since then he’d been on a submarine for several months. Since then he’d lost his brother and found him again. Since then he’d become a proper volunteer.

            He found, however, that his fingers remembered what they were doing, that even if his brain had forgotten the steps required for a ballet bun or a four-strand braid in favor of secret codes and eavesdropping techniques, his hands remembered the feeling of his sister’s thick brown hair.

            “There you are.” Jacques smiled as he tucked a final bobby pin into place. Kit smiles too and opens her eyes, taking in her hairdo reflected threefold in the Duchess’s vanity.

            “Very Audrey Hepburn,” she says, turning her head one way and then the other, touching the bangs lightly. “I like it.”

            Jacques picked up the two masks sitting on the sink counter and offered one to Kit. She took it, placed it on her face carefully, and tied the ribbon behind her head. She met her brother’s eye in the mirror.

            “I’m scared.”

            “We’re all scared, Kit.”

            She turned. The window was closed. She lowered her voice anyway. “He said he’d be here?”

            “In code, yes.”

            “And Beatrice?”  
            Jacques nodded. “I’ve heard she’s reusing her butterfly costume.”

            Kit breathed out a humorless laugh and dropped her head to look at her hands, folded in her lap, black cloth atop black cloth. She sighed, stood, and turned to her brother.

            “How do I look?”

            Her dress was long and black. It came to an empire waist with a band of wide black ribbon across her ribs. The chiffon extended to cover her pregnant belly. Her elbow-length gloves were also black. Her mask was rich satiny red, lined with gold, with a red flower blooming from one corner and small gold gems dotted under each eye.

            Kit had her mother’s eyes.

            “Brilliant.”

            Kit smiled. Jacques tied his teal mask behind his head, smiled, offered an arm to his sister.

 

~~

 

            “Can you go any faster, Jacques?” Kit’s voice was strained as she turned in her seat to watch out the rearview mirror.

            “I don’t want to kill us by throwing us off the mountain.” Jacques gripped the wheel tighter and looked in the rearview mirror. He saw no one following them, only the palace they’d fled only moments before going up in flames.

            “Oh, God,” Kit choked on a sob, holding her belly in one hand and her headrest in the other, still turned around watching the palace burn.

            “Are you okay?” Jacques reached one hand out to Kit. The other still gripped the wheel. The knuckles were turning white.

            “Did you see Beatrice?”  
            Jacques exhaled. “No.” He stopped. “I saw her on the balcony, just for a moment. With those big wings.”

            Kit turned sharply from the fire to her twin. Tears leaked from under her red mask. “At the end. Did you see Beatrice?”

            Jacques took his hand back. “No.”

            “What about Lemony?”  
            “He went to warn Beatrice.”

            “Oh, God,” Kit repeated, covering her mouth. “Do you think…” She didn’t dare say aloud what she hoped for, that her stupid, lovesick baby brother escaped the fire with his beloved, that they were having a similar conversation in another car about her and Jacques.

            Jacques didn’t dare say it either. “I don’t know.” He took a shaky breath. “I hope so.”

            The Duchess’s palace grew slowly smaller and smaller in Jacques’s rearview mirror, until it was a fire up on the mountain, until it was a smoky spot against the inky night sky. They drove through the Hinterlands in silence.

            “What do we do?” Kit’s voice is low and tight in her throat.

            “I,” Jacques starts and then stops. “There’s someone I can go talk to. A fortune teller.”

            Kit scoffs. “Fortune teller.”

            “She knows things, Kit. She has answers. She’s reputable. I’ll go and I’ll…”

            Jacques expects Kit to mock him, to tell him Madame Lulu would be a waste of time and they’d be better off asking some of their colleagues. But they both know most of their colleagues were dead before the Masked Ball, and many of them who were alive for the Masked Ball are probably dead after it, and that if Lemony does not want to be found he won’t be.

            Kit takes a shaky breath. “Okay. What about me?”

            “You need to go someplace safe.” He glanced briefly at Kit’s pregnant stomach.

            “Where?” Jacques could hear she was trying to keep her sobs in her chest, in her stomach, anywhere but her throat where they could climb out. “Everywhere that’s safe burns, Jacques. It’s only a matter of time.”

            “There’s the Headquarters. On Mount Fraught.”

            “Can we get there in a taxi?”  
            

Jacques sighed. “No. Not in your condition.”

            “Where, then?”

            “The last safe place.”

            Kit looked at her brother. Tears leaked from under his teal mask.

            Jacques took a deep breath. “The children. We don’t… We have to assume.”

            Kit nodded.

            “I’ll get us to the carnival. You take the taxi, and get a message to the children. Somehow, I don’t know. Find out wherever Poe takes them next. Honestly, if… he probably won’t be far behind them.” Jacques shifted his grip on the wheel. “Find Lemony and Beatrice if you can. Get a message to the children at all costs. Get them to the hotel.”

            Kit nodded. “What about you?”  
            “I’ll find a way from the carnival to the hotel. I’ll meet you there in time for the trial.”

            The twins were silent as they drove. The fire wasn’t visible in the rearview at all anymore, but if one squinted one could make out the trail of smoke inching from the side of the mountains up to the stars.

            “Teach me,” Kit said suddenly.

            Jacques glanced at Kit, then turned back to the road. “What?”

            “How to do my hair.”  
            Jacques’s eyebrow furrowed.

            “You’ve been doing my hair since we were young, since we first became volunteers. I may have lost one brother tonight and I feel like I’m going to lose another. I don’t know if I’m going to see you again.”

            Jacques sniffed.

            “I’m distraught and I’m pregnant and I want… to have something to keep you with me.” Kit gripped her brother’s arm.

            Jacques nodded. “Okay.” He swallowed a sob. He pulled the taxi to the side of the road, put it in park, and cut the ignition. The Hinterlands felt too quiet. He pulled his feet up into the driver’s seat and sat with his knees against the center console, facing his sister. “Can you turn around?”

            Kit gave a nod and turned to put her knees against the door and her lower back against the console.

            Jacques put his hands above and behind Kit’s head, and when he said “Give me your hands,” his voice cracked.

 

~~

 

            Kit idly touched the bun that stuck out from the back of her head. She’d done it herself, quickly, in the visor mirror of her brother’s taxi, stuck a few pencils in it in case she or the children needed them later. It wasn’t perfect, but it kept the hair out of her face.

            She looked out the passenger side window and saw three children climbing from the sea. They each wore submarine suits with a picture of Herman Melville on the front. She recognized the suits; Jacques had one hanging in his closet, back when they had the luxury of closets.

            Kit rested a hand on her stomach and exhaled. She knew Jacques was dead, and yet this was still his taxi. She knew Beatrice was dead, and yet these were still her children. She knew Lemony was alive, and yet. And yet. And yet.

            Kit watched the children talk to the banker and spot the taxi. She watched them watch each other. She watched them decide. They ran toward the taxi.

            The eldest, Violet, yanked the backseat door open and shouted, “Quigley!”

            And how Kit wished Quigley were there, in the passenger seat next to her, if only to make the children smile.

            How Kit wished Jacques were in the passenger seat next to her, if only to tell her he liked her bun.

            Instead, Kit only waved. “Hello, Baudelaires. Climb aboard.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you want more shenanigans from me in general you can follow my main tumblr, @jadeitebutterdish. I hope you have a wonderful day!


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